


lost somewhere in outer space

by shineyma



Category: Agents of S.H.I.E.L.D. (TV)
Genre: F/M, Post Episode: s04e22 World's End, Season/Series 04
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-05-17
Updated: 2017-05-17
Packaged: 2018-11-01 18:45:18
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,560
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/10927794
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/shineyma/pseuds/shineyma
Summary: For a terrifying moment, she can’t tell up from down, doesn’t know where her hands are or whether she’s standing or sitting.Jemma, post finale.





	lost somewhere in outer space

**Author's Note:**

> As noted in the summary and tags, this takes place after tonight's ep, 4x22: World's End. As such, it contains **SPOILERS** for said episode. If you haven't seen it yet, go away. Shoo!
> 
> If you HAVE seen it, I'm sure you're not surprised that my mind went _here_ the second I saw that tag. I am nothing if not predictable.
> 
> Thanks for reading and, as always, please be gentle if you review!

They’re in the diner, sitting in the dark, hands up as they wait to be arrested.

Then Jemma blinks and—

Light. The fluorescent kind. It’s blinding.

Jemma’s eyes hurt— _everything_ hurts—and her head swims. For a terrifying moment, she can’t tell up from down, doesn’t know where her hands are or whether she’s standing or sitting.

“Stay calm, Dr. Simmons,” an unfamiliar voice says. “Take some deep breaths. The disorientation will pass in a moment.”

“What—” Jemma gasps. Her lungs ache, cold and sharp like the first time she breathed in Zephyr One’s recycled air after six and half months on Maveth. “What—”

“Deep breaths,” the voice repeats. “Everything is fine.”

“I can’t—”

“You can.”

Sudden pressure on her chest anchors her. She’s not sitting _or_ standing, she realizes, she’s lying down. Her hands are folded on her stomach. Up is above her and down below.

She breathes.

“There we are,” the voice says. “Just keep breathing, Dr. Simmons.”

The pressure on her chest is a hand. It’s warm and broad, reassuring in its weight. It doesn’t seem to match the light, gentle tones of the woman speaking to her.

“What happened?” she asks, blinking rapidly. The light is too bright to see through; her eyes are watering awfully.

“You were frozen.”

_That_ voice she knows, but it’s not the voice that frightens her. It’s the _tone_.

Overwhelming hate and fear give her the strength to move. She rolls off the bed—gurney?—and stumbles away, legs unsteady. A sharp corner catches her hip, unbalancing her, and she falls—

—only to be caught in his arms and cradled against his chest.

“Hello, Jemma,” he says. Even over the hammering of her heart, she can hear the smile in his voice.

“Hive,” she all but snarls.

And she knows it’s him. It’s Ward’s voice (somehow), but her time in the Framework, getting to know that other, better version of Ward, helped her move past her traumas in that area. Ward, even on his worst day, couldn’t bring her this kind of instinctive terror.

This tone, though—the lightness of his voice, the gentleness to it—it’s all Hive. It’s horrifying, petrifying, capable of instilling a kind of hate Ward could never.

She thought she hated Aida more than she’d ever hated anyone. She’d managed to block this feeling out, let the memory of it fade after—

“You’re supposed to be dead,” she says. Her eyes are finally beginning to clear, not that there’s much to see; just the dark fabric of his coat and a wall of what appears to be metal beyond him. “The warhead—”

“Vaporized my body,” Hive completes, utterly unruffled. “But I am more than flesh, Jemma. I am _divine_. A mere explosion cannot kill me.”

Steady once more, Jemma pushes away from him, and though he lets her out of his arms, he catches her hand before she can retreat. Her skin should crawl as his thumb slides over her knuckles.

It doesn’t.

“Come,” he says. “You’re still recovering from your ordeal. You should sit.”

“Ordeal?” She tries to yank her hand away; he easily keeps his hold. “What is going _on_? How can you look like Ward—” (and he does look like Ward, again, still) “—if his body was vaporized?”

Hive sighs heavily, as if her perfectly reasonable questions are somehow bothersome.

“Open the window,” he orders.

He’s not addressing her; just behind him is a woman in a lab coat, standing back against the wall. At Hive’s order, she nods and steps away to a nearby panel.

Speaking of the wall, all of them are metal, as is the floor. Jemma is strongly reminded of the Russian’s base, and wonders for a moment if they’re on another drilling platform.

Then a section of the wall retracts and her thoughts grind to a complete halt.

That—those—

“Come,” Hive repeats, leading her back to the gurney. “Sit.”

Jemma doesn’t fight him. She can’t look away from the view revealed by the window.

“Asteroids,” she breathes. “Those are _asteroids_.”

“Yes.” Hive pushes her gently until she drops onto the gurney, feeling absurdly heavy for someone apparently in _space_. “We’re in the Kuiper belt, in my ship.”

“Your _ship_?”

“A long story,” he dismisses. “Suffice it to say that there were several alien races observing Earth at the time of the explosion—drawn, no doubt, by recent events—and that they were unprepared to face the divine.”

That’s the second time he’s called himself divine. She’d mock him for it, were she not still stuck on the bloody _asteroids_ outside.

“I took the captain of one ship as my vessel,” he continues. “And from there, I built an empire. I understand you’ve been distracted by a crisis within SHIELD; I’m not surprised you missed the signs. But your government belongs to me, as do several others. When I was informed you and your team had been found, of course I ordered you brought directly to me.”

The team.

“What have you done to them?” she demands, ripping herself away from him once more. She puts her back to the window and glowers at him, fists clenched in a useless fury. “If you’ve hurt them…”

Hive is smiling at her. Her stomach turns.

“They’re fine,” he says. “They’ve been put to work, as all prisoners are. So long as they cause no trouble, they have nothing to fear.”

“And if they do?” she demands.

“Oh, they won’t.” Still smiling, he stands, stepping into her personal space, and grips her hips in order to pull her close.

Through sheer force of will, she manages to hold her ground. She won’t let him scare her into retreating again.

“I must confess,” he says, “I’ve been dishonest. It was nearly a year ago that you were brought here; your team I woke at once, but I wanted my position to be wholly secure before I brought you back.”

“Brought me back?” she echoes.

“You were cryogenically frozen,” he says, almost dismissively. “Something your team knew well. I even allowed them to visit you, once or twice.”

Jemma swallows painfully. She thinks she knows where this is going.

“You used me to keep them in line,” she says.

The smile he aims at her now is so loving as to turn her veins to ice. She doesn’t need to ask what makes her different, why he kept her apart while the others were put immediately to work, why _she_ was the one chosen as leverage.

More importantly, she _won’t_ ask. She doesn’t want to hear him say it.

Hive cups her face in his hands and leans in. For a horrible moment, she’s certain he’s going to kiss her—is already rearing back to hit him for it—but all he does is rest his forehead against hers.

“They have been obedient because they feared for you,” he says, “but in time, it will be because they _fear_ you. You are meant for greater things than your little SHIELD lab, my Jemma, and with me, you shall achieve them.” His fingers flex on her skin—not quite digging in, but close to it. “You are a goddess— _my_ goddess—and all the world will know it.”

Jemma’s heart is racing. Harsh words are waiting on her tongue, but prudence freezes her. It was only days ago (for her, at least; has it truly been a _year_?) that she stood and watched Fitz reject Aida, and look how _that_ ended.

If she laughs in Hive’s face, as she so dearly wishes to do, will her team suffer for it? There are no convenient LMDs here with which to fake a death—no Robbie Reyes to gift her the power to kill Hive, at least as far as she knows. She has only herself and her wits, and her wits tell her that relieving him of his delusions will only get her friends killed.

But she can’t passively accept his words. That’s simply not in her.

“And if I disagree?” she asks. Her voice is steady; a miracle, truly. “If I say I have no interest in being a goddess?”

With a chuckle, Hive draws back.

“You will,” he says. “In time.” The press of his hands increases briefly, a chillingly affectionate gesture, and then he drops them and steps away. “For now, you need to recover. You’re still weak; Elena will be in momentarily with a meal for you.”

The bottom falls out of Jemma’s stomach. “You swayed Yo-Yo.”

It’s not a question. It doesn’t need to be.

“Of course,” he says airily, and then turns to the woman Jemma had already forgotten, the one standing silently by the wall. “I will return in the morning. See to it that Jemma gets her rest.”

Jemma doesn’t hear the woman’s response—if indeed there is one. Nor does she hear Hive wish her goodnight, though she sees his mouth form the word. It’s as though her ears have been stuffed with cotton; she can’t hear anything at all beyond the beating of her own heart.

Yo-Yo swayed, the team imprisoned, Jemma herself the object of Hive’s obsession, the whole lot of them stranded in space…

She doesn’t dare think things can’t get worse. Experience has taught her better than to tempt fate in such a way.

Still, it’s hard to imagine how they could.


End file.
